Due to limited availability and expense of conventional fossil fuel energy sources, major efforts have been recently directed to the manufacture and use of apparatus for conversion of solar energy into a useable energy medium for both industrial and home use. Solar powered energy generators of both active and passive types are known. Generally, passive type solar powered energy generators comprise large solar collectors containing a heat transfer medium, such as water, and suitably located for receiving direct sunlight, such as on the roof of a building. Such passive collector systems have certain disadvantages, in that the collectors must be extremely large and properly oriented to capture sufficient direct sunlight for conversion to utilizeable heat energy, their efficiency is directly affected by seasonal variations of the position of the sun and the geographic location of use, and many of such systems lose a great deal of collected heat energy during non-sunlight hours and when environmental temperatures are low.
Active solar energy collection systems generally comprise either movable solar collectors containing a heat transfer medium, or movable sunlight reflectors, such as parabolic mirrors, which operate to track the sun in its path across the sky and reflect and concentrate the sunlight at a desired location on a heat transfer medium in the solar collector. Although such active systems overcome certain disadvantages of the passive type solar collector systems, they are generally quite expensive to construct and operate, and, as a result, are not practical for many applications, such as for home use.
Various solar energy collector systems are exemplified in the following United States Patents which have been referred to or cited in prosecution of my aforesaid U.S. patent applications identified above:
U.S. Pat. No. 679,451 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,785,651 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 1,993,213 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,203,167 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,451,342 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,118 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,417 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,002,031 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,018,212 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,715 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,026,267 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,043,315 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,474 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,129,120 PA1 U.S. Pat. No. 4,188,941
A major problem of solar powered collectors or concentrations presently in the marketplace is the lack of optical precision and structural firmness of the active collector systems, and the massive structural design and poor efficiency of passive type systems.